#this is a lot of text sorry. i have lots of thoughts abt small scenes so theres a pretty ridiculous ratio of text to pictures. yikes

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 9)

Previously we talked about how Natsume gave up on trying to make Mikan hate him in order to support her on her mission to retrieve Iinchou's alice and an antidote for Hotaru's wound. We also discussed his feelings of insecurity and contrasting surrender with not being relied upon by Mikan. He simultaneously accepts that she shouldn't get close and also hates that she doesn't call out to him when she's in trouble.

Today we'll talk about the cementing information about Natsume' life-span, as it has consequences on his relationship with Mikan, as well as the harsh differences between Natsume and the others on this mission.

Chapter Thirty-Six

This arc reveals several things, but this chapter specifically addresses Natsume’s differences from the rest of them. This isn’t his first life-or-death mission, and he has experience with this that the rest of them lack.

When they wake up in the mountains, Natsume and Ruka are quick to try and find information about their surroundings, and Tsubasa establishes that eating should be a priority as well.

Mikan wanted to be useful in this way, having packed food for this occasion. Unfortunately, Pengy is in her backpack instead, having eaten everything she prepared. Natsume is adamant that Pengy be discarded, as it’s already proven itself to be a hindrance. Mikan sticks up for it, saying that it was a gift from Hotaru, but Natsume argues that that’s nonsense.

This is a great example of the difference between them. For Mikan, this may be a noble adventure where she will go on a journey and save Iinchou and Hotaru, but for Natsume, this is his second life. He knows how this sort of thing goes. This isn’t a game, it’s a deadly mission where they might get killed. They could starve. They could get injured. Hindrances like Pengy only increase the chance of that happening, as it’s already shown.

Natsume came along to help the journey be smooth and as safe as possible, so really he's just doing what he came to do.

Mikan promises to take responsibility for it, so Natsume begrudgingly allows it, but there’s tension between them now. Pengy’s behavior needs to be in line, or Natsume will have been proven right.

And then almost immediately, Natsume is proven right.

Pengy gets itself trapped by a flesh-eating plant, and Mikan and Ruka rush to save it. The enchanted trees nearby are awakened and irritated, so they start spitting sap and acorns at each other, with the kids in the crossfire.

Natsume is covered with sap and leaves and, although he is annoyed, doesn’t really react until Ruka is attacked by a swinging branch and crashes against another tree trunk. Because Ruka has been hurt, Natsume goes berserk once again, setting all the trees in the area on fire for what they did to his friend. This is an example of how going berserk can actually be useful, as Natsume is able to take out the threat and keep them all safe.

The tension is even worse now. Natsume had to clean up after Pengy’s mess, even after Mikan said she would take responsibility. Mikan gets defensive and argues, even attempting to downplay the role Pengy played, but Natsume is in no mood to listen. He has a point, after all, because this situation is much more dangerous than any of the rest of them fully comprehend.

The DA class was going to dispatch experts (children, but still experts) to take out Z, and now he's going in blind with very little intel and a group of unexperienced kids who have no idea how dangerous this really is. Natsume comes close to death on a regular basis, and even as readers we have no idea if that regular basis means weekly or even sometimes daily. From what we’ve seen in the Reo arc, we’re aware that Natsume is always prepared to die, but will do what it takes to survive and accomplish the objective. This time, in order to accomplish the objective, they can’t lose their food or get attacked by trees and flesh-eating plants. In order to survive and do what they came for, Pengy should be discarded.

What’s more is that Natsume is angry because Pengy caused Ruka to be hurt, and he’s still upset about it. The damage could have been worse, and Pengy would have been responsible. He doesn’t want something like that to happen again, especially because two of the people on this mission with him are people he cares very much about and doesn’t want to see hurt.

Natsume isn’t usually one to get distracted by tense conversations either. He immediately jumps back into action to alert the others that something isn’t right--they’re in the territory of an embedded medusa alice and are in danger yet again.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Once again, Ruka is put in danger because of Pengy, whom he attempts to save from the medusa alice. This time, Mikan is able to take responsibility, and uses her nullification, amplified by Tono’s alice stone, to protect the both of them from the embedded alice.

This event brings some information about alice stones, but it’s just a taste of what we will later learn. If anything, it’s just an appetizer before the meal that we will have later on.

Natsume, ever observant on missions and always analytical, has been noticing a lack of fruit trees in the area and realizes that the animals that have been sharing the fruits have been traveling through warp zones. Natsume has so far been planning and strategizing, and Ruka, being so eager to prove himself, has been trying to be just as useful. As soon as they woke up, Ruka started communicating with animals to get info, and now that Natsume has brought up another possibility, Ruka instantly goes to work again.

Natsume can see how much Ruka is trying, and because of that, he insists that they all rest, because Ruka has overworked himself. Natsume wants his best friend to feel as important as he is, that he can be relied on. He specifically wants Ruka to know that he relies on him and trusts him, and that he is valuable on this mission.

They are winding down for the night, and Natsume has decided that since Mikan is taking too long getting the water, he’ll go get some himself. In the process, he ends up overhearing the conversation Mikan had with Ruka about alice stones.

Ruka doesn’t reveal much more about alice stones, just says that as they get stronger, they can all make alice stones. Then he promises to give Mikan his stone when he makes one someday, attaching all the romantic intent there with it. He’s content that Mikan swears the same, despite the fact that she doesn’t know what such a promise entails.

Ruka feels guilty for this, and runs to get Natsume.

But Natsume was listening the whole time, and revealing himself would embarrass Ruka, or make him feel even guiltier, so he keeps himself hidden. Even something as small as this is a selfless act.

But he can’t help it that Mikan finds him.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Mikan starts blabbering, but he responds unkindly at every new topic. His biggest concern is that Mikan doesn’t actually know what she just promised to do with Ruka. Natsume and Ruka both know: it’s more or less like a proposal of commitment, like dating or even marriage. She has no idea that there’s a romantic meaning with exchanging alice stones, but he can’t tell her either, because it would embarrass Ruka and put him on the spot. So when Mikan asks what it means, he elects not to say anything and ignores her instead. She has the right to know, of course, but Natsume won’t say it when doing so would throw Ruka under the bus like that.

As a result, there is a long, awkward silence that Mikan doesn’t enjoy, but Natsume can’t break.

Eventually, she breaks it, just to randomly say that one day, when she grows up, if she can make an excellent alice stone, she will give it to Natsume.

You know when you really want something, and suddenly it seems like the stars have aligned in all the wrong ways--you CAN have this thing, but you really shouldn't take it? Yeah, that's what this is. For me, this usually happens with food, but with some people I guess it's more meaningful.

It’s the last thing he expects, and he’s taken aback. He has done nothing obvious enough to deserve an alice stone from Mikan. He’s mean to her all the time, has even argued with her on this very mission, and told her he hated her only a couple days ago. There was so much anger between them because of Pengy, and yet she still promises that she will give him her alice stone. Natsume has a low self-esteem, and thinks the only thing that should be noticed by anyone is what he wants them to notice. His secret kindness doesn’t make up for anything else he does. He should ultimately still be the last of anyone’s priorities. He doesn’t think he’s worth an alice stone, because for years he’s been told that he isn’t even worth his own life.

Persona made it clear to him that the only thing he was good for was his performance on missions. If he cannot service the school, then he is no longer valuable. He should die. And because he does these missions to protect Aoi and Ruka, then ultimately he is only so valuable as long as he is protecting others, sacrificing himself for them. Even before that, Natsume has been self-sacrificing, but to have it drilled into you that your value is conditional--there’s no way something like that wouldn’t have grave consequences on a child’s self esteem.

To be told by the girl he likes that she wants to give him an alice stone… It’s unimaginable.

And he shuts it down.

He reminds her she already promised hers to Ruka, and tells her she couldn’t make more than one with ease. She only needs to make one for Ruka. He doesn’t want it.

Natsume could easily take advantage of the fact that Mikan has no idea what the alice stones mean and accept it. He could tell her what she’s promising. He could ignore her.

Instead, he rejects it, adamantly.

This is just so silly!

They end up bickering and splashing each other with water, acting like little kids (which they are) and getting entirely soaked.

Natsume looks at her, his memory focusing on when she said, “when I grow up.”

"When I grow up..." Damn, Mikan, don't rub it in. That's the thing he's sensitive about!

Natsume rejected her for many reasons. He will put Ruka’s happiness before his own. He doesn’t want to trick Mikan into anything. He doesn’t think he deserves it. It wouldn’t mean the same thing to her that it would to him. And, most tragically, he’s not going to grow up to be able to receive it.

By the time Mikan is able to make a fabulous alice stone worthy to give to someone, Natsume will certainly not be the one to receive it, because he will probably be long dead. Why would he allow her to make a promise that would be impossible for her to keep?

No, he has no choice but to reject her here, stomp out any chance that she would ever consider him again.

They’re both soaking wet, and she’s tugging at her hair, trying to wring it out, and all he can do is look at her.

And then he tells her that her pigtail hairstyle doesn’t suit her. In five years, she should wear her hair down. He thinks she looks better that way.

Might as well tell her now because he won't be around in five years, and wouldn't it be a travesty if nobody let her know?

Natsume has been selfless for most of the conversation, choosing Ruka’s feelings over everything else whenever he could. This comment of his is the first selfish thing to come out of his mouth this whole day.

They were all aged up before, because of the Gulliver candy, and Mikan’s hair had been in her customary pigtail style. We already have the feeling that Natsume likes her with her hair down, since he was so vehement that she didn’t put it up back during the musical. Now we (and Mikan) get verbal confirmation.

He tells her now, because in five years' time, he won't be alive to say it.

He must not think much of this, in terms of how it will affect her. Maybe it felt safe to say something insignificant, like “your hair’s nicer down”, after all the rejecting he’s had to do so far. He had to tell her he hated her, rejected her stone, and argued with her all day. It must be tiresome to lie all the time, especially when his real feelings are the opposite of what he’s letting on. He just wants to let a little of the affection he has for her out, especially when he’s looking at her like this. It’s not a love confession, or a promise to exchange alice stones. If he ever shows any affection, it should be small and almost imperceptible, nothing grand and obvious like Ruka’s. Natsume would never try to purposefully undermine Ruka’s wooing.

It’s not his fault that the smallest comment like that has such a huge impact on her.

They return to camp and find Tsubasa and Ruka absolutely wasted on grapes that Pengy has found. Yet another con on Natsume’s endless list of Pengy cons. Tsubasa sobers up, but Ruka embraces Mikan. In his drunken stupor, it almost seems like he might try to kiss Mikan. Although Natsume might be willing to put his best friend’s happiness before his, that doesn’t mean he’ll allow a wasted Ruka to kiss her. There’s plenty of reasons that could go wrong, after all, and there’s no doubt Ruka would be horrified come morning. So he pulls Ruka off Mikan and together they sleep, with Ruka nestled in the fur of a bear, snuggled up among animals. Natsume is uncomfortable, but he won’t tear his hand away from Ruka’s grip because it’s meant to comfort his friend.

He only separates from him a little later, when he starts coughing uncontrollably and we’re faced with yet another realization about Natsume.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The chapter opens with Tsubasa watching in concern as Natsume coughs, until he coughs up blood. Once he’s coughed out his blood, Natsume catches his breath and reaches for the healing alice stone he keeps around his neck. For all of Tsubasa’s concern about it, Natsume almost seems nonchalant. He’s not shocked or disturbed at all to see blood in his palm. His biggest concern is that Tsubasa keep it down because he’s being too loud and it might wake up the others.

Because even when Natsume’s life is nearing its end and his body is quickly decaying, all he is concerned with is Ruka. He coughed up blood. So what? All he cares about is that he isn’t worrying anybody. Natsume’s crippling martyr complex manifests here as a complete disregard for his own health, as long as everyone else is ignorant and happy. No matter how concerned Tsubasa is about him, Natsume is never on his own list of priorities.

Natsume is the least important person in his own life.

But he still informs Tsubasa that he’s been in this shape for a year, as a result of going on frequent missions for the school. Natsume has never told anybody this, but Tsubasa already knows one damning thing, so might as well just tell him everything. It must be a relief to him, to be able to confess it, after keeping it to himself this whole time.

Tsubasa is adamant that this is a big deal, and that he wouldn't feel right, letting Natsume continue on the mission while he's in this state.

So Natsume must once again point out that he’s different from the rest of them. His alice isn’t intended for use as a parlor trick or fun little hobby. His is to destroy and hurt, and not just the school’s enemies, but himself as well. His alice is incredibly powerful, a consequence of the life-shortening ability type, and at only ten years old he has an excellent, almost prodigal, grasp on controlling and utilizing it. Natsume can make an alice stone with ease, ignite or put out a fire no problem. And because of his position in the DA class, he’s also tactically and strategically advanced, so missions like the one they’re currently on are nothing he isn’t used to. He’s their ace, and that’s what Natsume is trying to stress to Tsubasa. He’s a great player to have on the team because of his experience and ability.

So don’t fucking spill about it, okay?

Because he’s capable and willing to retaliate, and if he does, it won’t be pleasant.

But what sticks in Tsubasa’s mind (and probably the reader’s) is that all that experience and ability comes at a steep cost, one that isn’t really worth it, not that Natsume has a choice in the matter.

Natsume leaves the conversation, going right back to Ruka and cuddling up with him again. He hadn’t wanted to leave Ruka’s side to begin with, understandably concerned that Ruka should get plenty of rest after a long day of using his alice and then getting drunk. Natsume is more than willing to help Ruka and fret over him, but he never gives Ruka the same opportunity, because he doesn’t want to put anybody, least of all his close friends, in that position. Natsume should be the one caring about people. He should be the last priority to everyone else, just like he is to himself.

And the next morning when Ruka wakes up, confused over what happened as he doesn’t remember anything, Natsume gets right back into the mission. Just like last night with the alice stones, he doesn’t want to embarrass Ruka.

As they continue their journey, Tsubasa continuously tries to voice concern for Natsume while not letting Mikan or Ruka know, as had been requested of him. Natsume responds with insults, because of course he does. Tsubasa then mutters, “And here I was, worrying about you!” but that’s exactly the effect Natsume was trying to have in the first place.

Natsume is really funny though, I think we can all agree.

Natsume has several go-to moves for his selflessness, and though they vary depending on the person and situation, most of them involve him being a jerk. In this case, he is being a jerk on purpose so that Tsubasa won’t worry about him. It’s hard to be overly concerned about a person when they’re bugging the shit out of you, after all. This is absolutely intentional, a technique Natsume uses often.

It backfires on him though, because Tsubasa is frequently surrounded by bratty kids with too much of a mouth on them. As they head up the mountain, Tsubasa keeps his eye on Natsume, who is obviously struggling physically with the trek. So Tsubasa picks him up and throws him over his shoulder to carry him part of the way. Natsume’s annoying attitude only further frustrates Tsubasa to this point. He even threatens to tell the others if he doesn’t comply and allow himself to be carried. Naturally, Natsume fights and kicks and scratches and even bites his way out of Tsubasa’s grasp as Ruka and Mikan watch, dumbfounded, but this exchange shows us two things:

Tsubasa and Natsume’s relationship is slowly evolving. They’re connected now and have a tie beyond Mikan. Tsubasa knows information about Natsume that nobody else does. It forces Tsubasa to see Natsume as more than just a little brat, and forces Natsume to put his trust in this person he’d hated with his whole chest before.

Natsume is extremely uncomfortable when he is being cared for. He’s used to being in the caretaker role, as I’ve mentioned previously in the Reo Arc. Even then, when Mikan carried and protected him, he was quick to encourage her to leave him behind. Now, with Tsubasa, Natsume cannot stand it. It’s not just that he isn’t quite as fond of Tsubasa, it’s also just the knowledge that someone is worrying about him, slowing themselves down and inconveniencing themselves for his sake. He goes out of his way to seem rude and unpleasant to avoid this exact kind of situation, so Tsubasa putting in the effort despite Natsume’s best efforts is distressing to him.

It only makes things worse that all the care Tsubasa is suddenly giving him might give things away to Ruka or Mikan, and Natsume will do anything to avoid that.

Natsume gets his chance for revenge when he kicks Tsubasa down a warpzone with full force, flinging Mikan in right after for good measure. They reemerge near the mouth of a volcano and discern that they must be in the right place when they discover that there's hallucinogenic smoke coming from the mouth. They fall through the crater and end up in a strange room.

Natsume and Tsubasa’s bickering over the large and suspicious door distracts them from the shaky ground which crumbles under Mikan’s feet.

She falls, pulled down by a skeleton. The boys all look on, horrified. Tsubasa holds Ruka back and Natsume reaches desperately for Mikan, calling for her by name, but it’s too late. She’s gone.

The last thing she does is begin to call for Natsume, but she’s lost now. Finally, Mikan is calling for him, wanting to rely on him, but he’s not able to protect her.

The one time she calls out for him, he can't help her.

Natsume has been trying to keep up appearances and the charade of disliking Mikan, but reaching for her with desperation is something he has to do, even if it reveals that he cares. They have absolutely no way of knowing what Mikan will find in that hole, or if she’ll even come back out in one piece.

Chapter 40

The ground closed back up as soon as Mikan fell through. As Tsubasa and Ruka discuss what could have happened, and Pengy cries, Natsume sits and contemplates. He remembers that Mikan is Yuka’s daughter and comforts himself with that knowledge. He will put faith in the fact that Yuka probably won’t let any harm come to her own child and steels himself. Although Mikan has just been forcibly separated from the group, knowing that she’s not in immediate danger is important to be able to keep going on with the mission. That’s Natsume’s specialty after all, and because of him, they can stay focused on where to go moving forward instead of panicking about the ground opening and swallowing their friend.

But his newfound composure doesn’t change the fact that he had acted in desperation already, calling and reaching out for Mikan in front of both Ruka and Tsubasa. As they make their way through the door that suspiciously opened for them, Tsubasa teases him. First he earnestly tells Natsume that getting angry won’t help anything, least of all with bringing Mikan back, but then he continues to prod. He tells Natsume not to blame himself, even though it must be hard for him to deal with not being able to save Mikan after all of his big talk. This sets Natsume off.

It's almost like Tsubasa wants to be blown up.

It hits too close to home because Natsume is blaming himself. He came onto the mission specifically to use his experience to keep them all focused and safe, so that they could be efficient and effective and make it back in time. Despite all his strategy and quick thinking, he wasn’t able to do anything about the sand trap. In fact, he’d been distracted when it first happened. He may be a child soldier, but the crucial part of that is that he’s still a child, so it makes sense that he would occasionally make mistakes. Still, in his line of expertise, mistakes get you or the people around you killed.

Natsume thinks about his new discovery of the stealing alice as he keeps going, having just blasted Tsubasa away from him. He’d never heard of such an alice, but to him, someone with such complicated feelings of hatred towards his ability and what it has always represented, it’s enticing. One touch and he’d be free forever. Maybe he could get what he’d always thought was impossible, what he’d never dared to imagine: an actual future he’d get to see.

Natsume, Ruka, and Tsubasa get led out of the tunnel by lasers into a vast room, where Shiki and a group of other Z members are waiting for them.

Conclusion

We see further proof of what we'd already known: that Natsume has a fundamentally different life than the rest of them do. His arguing with Mikan over Pengy might seem needlessly cruel, but he does have a point and he's motivated by keeping the group as safe as possible. We also talked about Natsume's imminent death, and how his knowledge of it affects his relationships, particularly with Mikan. Most importantly, we can see that Natsume has failed in his primary goal: he was unable to keep Mikan safe.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about how all these conflicts come to a head in the Z Arc, and what the lasting repercussions might be.

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[prlncessandthepauper]

What’s going on at your school? I hope you’re okay and I’m sending my best vibes/prayers/etc (I hope that that’s okay, I know not everyone is comfortable with those, so um, sorry, just wanna send best wishes)

//tw for possible m*rder/s*icide and death//

Okay so like, I’ll try to sum it up as best I can?

(Pls note that I’m only going off of news articles, school emails/alerts, and other students’ social medias, cuz I transferred to a college that was closer to home after my first semester there. I don’t attend this school currently, but the ppl who were found dead were in my classes when I did go there.)

This college is a satellite campus, located on this small island that is mostly just a nature preserve, and the majors that this campus offers are all marine science majors. A lot of field research goes on here, and the only things on this island are the school and a bunch of beachside wilderness. Most of the island is overgrowth and sand. The school consists of three main types of students, the marine science majors, the engineers (who transfer to the main campus after their first year), and the cadets (military students who join the coast guard after graduating). Cadets have their own dorm building that is at the very edge of campus, surrounded by overgrowth and located across the road and separate from the rest of the school dorms/buildings.

The cadets have a very strict military-esq routine, and they have to wake up before the break of dawn most days to meet with the rest of the cadets and do their whole military drill things. One student never showed up on Thursday morning. He was last scene the day before. It soon became apparent that no one knew where he went, and soon enough the police were contacted and he was reported as a missing person by the end of the day.

The police begin to search campus. At one point among all of this, a wellness check was called for another cadet, who at some point in the day “went missing”. (Wellness checks are often called by parents if their child isn’t replying, so I guess no one thought anything of it). Throughout most of this, the university’s power has been shut off for some reason, I only know abt this due to campus alerts I receive through texts (I have no idea how to turns these alerts off, so every now and then I just get random messages telling me abt things like flood warnings). The power is off most of the day, until 9:15 pm. So no security footage or anything is captured in this time frame.

Less than an hour after the power is turned on, campus police finally check up on this student, only to find him dead in his dorm room. They claim that it is unrelated to the missing person, and likely due to some medical problem with no suicide/foul play involved, although this student’s cause of death is still unknown.

There’s no trace of the missing student at this point.

The next day, news articles about said missing student and the dead student are being released. Despite the missing student being missing for over a day and police having no luck finding him, no description is released, nothing sent out in an attempt to see if anyone knows where the kid is. Around midday, police find the missing student’s car abandoned at the side of the road. Several hours later, they find the remains of the missing student in the overgrowth surrounding the school.

Police claim that the deaths are unrelated, despite being within 24 hours of each other and the student population being that of a high school.

Both students were cadets, with cadets making up a small portion of an already small student population. For reference, several small apartment complexes surround the school for older students who want a cheaper place to stay, as well as five or six on-campus dorm buildings, there’s only one dorm building for the cadets.

The students are rightfully calling bs on the police claims of the two deaths being natural and unrelated.

The island is mostly covered in a large amount of overgrowth— to the point where even student-frequented beaches are near impossible to reach unless you know where to find the small paths leading to them. For a student to just suddenly appear dead in the middle of the overgrowth? Unless people were specifically searching with trained dogs to find him, no one would’ve been able to locate his body, which wasn’t anywhere near his car.

Some students are claiming the situation has serial killer vibes, others are claiming it has murder-suicide vibes. Then there’s the topic of how the school is actually handling the situation (just linking a bunch of counseling numbers and refusing to actually address the situation).

But yeah lol, I’m probably missing a few things but the locations and timings of the deaths by themselves are just shady all together. Coupled with a super long power-outage, campus police failing to check up on the student in their dorm, the police taking more than a day to find the missing student’s car when the island is already super small and it takes less than half an hour to drive along all of the roads, it’s just super suspicious and the way the school + police are handling it is awful.

[lids-flutter-open]

mediocre character development stuff under cut sorry if ur on mobile its long text

its abt my character elaine first person pov cuz im trying to write some extra-textual sketches to figure out some scenes

Dawn came up over the hill as the bus was edging closer to the Oregon border. Chad was sitting next to me slumped into his seat with his head to one side. His hair was longer than mine had been a year ago and it was oily from days camping. He hadn’t shaved and his skin looked like a mess. He smelled like cigarettes and campfire smoke. I looked at my reflection in the bus window in the blue light of the early January morning and winced my skin clean with the spell I’d learned from Irma back in Kansas. I wished I could scrape the outer layer of my skin off with a rock or a very wide razor file. I looked over at a woman who was reading a book with a  little lamp she clipped onto the cover. She was clean and wore jeans with rhinestones and had gotten on the bus in some tiny town late the night before. I had noticed she was giving me sidelong glances. I thought about how I would like to be her if the opportunity presented itself. I bet she was the child of an auto mechanic or a copy shop clerk and took classes at her local community college. Her hands were all manicured and clean on the pages of her novel. She looked like she was in the middle of a good part now and didn’t care about us any more.      

We went over the border and I sort of half expected them to stop us and search for fruits or werewolves on board, even though I knew that since we were on a bus we were pretty much cleared to go. I took my wallet out again and looked at the fake ID I’d gotten back in L.A again just to make sure it didn’t look too fake. It had my mom’s first name on it and then a made up last name. Next to it were three cards from Rodney that I usually kept hidden in my socks. I kept expecting Rodney to cancel them but whenever I used them they went through. The bus rocketed through these forests of green icy tall trees and into Oregon and I fell asleep for a minute and missed the second the sun came over the edge of the horizon.

Salem was a small town in the middle of a lot of highway. It’s the capital, but you wouldn’t know it. You can see Mount Hood on a clear day. The first time I visited I was deeply underwhelmed. There was a diner or four and a small downtown that you felt was gonna get filled up in the next ten years with antique shops. People here were mostly white and mostly drove cars everywhere. The land was flat and it was on a river. It was the third biggest town in Oregon, which goes to show that not many people really live in Oregon. Chad told me that the main thing here was the state and then a potato chip factory and then berry farms outside town. And timber. I hadn’t been to Salem in a couple years and it hadn’t changed much. This time of year the roads were covered in ice and when we went over bumps there was this kind of terrible sense you could slip. I watched the sunrise through the window. It looked like cat vomit. I checked through my bag for everything I needed to set up camp and then everything else I had on me that hadn’t gotten too heavy. I had a swimsuit from the three months Chad and I had lived in a house on a beach with this dude who turned out to be hooked on Oxy. I had four diaries. I still had a mix tape from Felix, who was dead and buried somewhere in Missouri. I wanted a cigarette but Chad and I had had a fight about how it was bad for him so now I was trying not to smoke and anyway I only had three Camels left.

“You want me to read your Tarot cards?” I turned to Chad. “I still have the set you gave me.”

He mumbled in his sleep. I looked over at the woman reading the book and thought about what she would do if I asked to read her cards. She was the only other person that was sitting towards the back of the bus. Up near the front there were three heavyset short men who looked related, all zoning out or sleeping under their knit hats and heavy coats. The bus was overheated and I felt sweat dripping down my stomach under my sweatshirt.

Chad woke up as we got into the Greyhound station across from the hospital. He sat down on the curb at the edge of the street and smoked the last of his weed. We waited for Josh, his friend, to show up.

“How’s being sober?” Chad asked me.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t feel like there’s something dead in my mouth and it’s morning at the same time.”

“We can fix that,” Chad said. “You want breakfast somewhere? We still have a little cash, right? We can eat some dead stuff.”

“I’m saving that cash to buy a Jeep.”

“You got your cards too,” Chad said.

“My Tarot deck?”

“Whatever, I know Rodney isn’t gonna cancel those. He doesn’t even pick up his mail, he probably has no idea what you’re spending.”

I watched the rhinestone jean girl get into a van with a man that had a giant piercing through his nose and wondered what I didn’t know about her. I wanted to ask Chad if he’d seen her but he was standing up and walking around and stretching and the moment was gone. I looked around and wondered where there was some place to get breakfast. There was a hospital across the street and next to it was the university.

  ***

The cops came up the steps and everyone was going in a million different directions and I felt like this ripple down my spine of sweat and fear. I looked at Aysel. She was standing in the middle of everything looking stupid and lost as people ran all over like shrimp on a beach. I couldn’t see her friend. Chad pushed past me back into the living room and Carmen bolted out the back door. I saw a lot of the people from downtown who weren’t wolves give panicked glances to one another. I knew they were thinking, fuck, what the hell did we get ourselves into? I wondered if one of them was a plant, or one of our crew, but at this particular moment it didn’t matter a lot. I saw everyone running into the basement and wanted to scream that that was the most idiotic fucking thing you could possibly do unless you planned to like hide under a pile of coal like it was the Soviets coming to collectivize us in 1918 or something, and as far as I knew there wasn’t any coal down there. I ran over and grabbed Aysel’s hand and said something mean under my breath to Chad. Aysel’s hand felt all sweaty. We weren’t going to make it out before the cops came in but we could get out of sight so I hung onto her and tore around the corner and flattened myself toward the floor. We were near an exit and there was nothing blocking it. If there was some kind of distraction I thought we could make it. The cops might surround the place but I had bets that the back garden wasn’t covered yet. I thought about the time in Philly when someone had beat apart the fuse box with a hammer when the cops got called because they had a hiding place right near it and all the lights went out and nearly everyone got away. If I turned out the lights the cops might just start shooting and plant guns on our dead bodies later. I couldn’t hear any helicopters but I thought there might be some I couldn’t hear, because everyone was being so fucking loud.

I told Aysel to be ready to run and meanwhile I was thinking about how she probably could not run fast enough.

Chad was standing there like a stupid idiot and shouted some bullshit and tried to be all heroic. His body was all tense and upright. He said something loud I don’t remember and then the cops opened fire and I yanked Aysel’s arm out of her tiny arm socket and we fucking bolted. I hated running from shit then and I hate it now and I will hate it forever. I stopped smoking but my lungs still hurt all the time and I can still barely breathe. The safe house in Salem was ok at least because it’s up against all these private yards that you know the cops won’t clamber into so you can throw yourself through them and lose people pretty fast. I got leaves and wet mud up the sides of my jeans but I barely registered it.

“Did you see who they shot?”

Aysel panted something and I couldn’t hear her.

We stopped and I was seeing sparks in front of my eyes and my heart was pounding like a fucked clock or whatever and it hit me in an instant that Chad was like, probably really dead, and the way my life was together wasn’t a thing that was actually together, it was just stuck haphazardly into a shape and the shape had just broken. I looked at Aysel and she looked like this fucking kid, suddenly, like she always looked young but suddenly she was looking at me like I was her mom and I wasn’t her fucking mom and her real mom was looking for her and I wasn’t anyone, I was this nobody loser asshole who had taken her to the movies like I was some kind of predatory lesbian from a pulp novel and then taken her to a weird political meeting that had gotten busted by cops and she was just in it all and knee deep in her own excitement and I’d fucked her over and now we were covered in mud in some parking lot. Her hair was matted and I thought about how she wasn’t even fucking out probably, she hadn’t even had her first lesbian haircut. I knew she wanted one, I knew from just like seeing her that she wanted short hair.

I hugged her thinking about how I was a fucked up person and she needed someone better and I needed someone grown up. I felt tears streaming down my face and I felt Aysel crying against me all burning and little. I felt her hands against my back and suddenly realized she was holding me tightly, like I was something stable. I ripped myself away from her and tore over to the chain link fence separating the parking lot from the road. I wanted to hurl myself onto the asphalt so the passing cars could crush my skull. If Dad had shown up with his rifle I would have taken it from his hands and hyperextended my arms backwards and shot myself in the throat with it. I felt more scared than I ever had in my whole life and I felt my body like electricity in a bathtub. I punched the fence over and over with my hands barely in fists, just tearing the skin on my knuckles open against the rusted metal. I have never had a tetanus shot and I thought about the diamonds in my mother’s drawer when I was a kid and how if I died nobody was going to put diamond earrings on me when they buried me. I wasn’t going to even die in a ditch in Kansas or on the railroad tracks or in a hospital, I was going to die in a gutter or on the street like roadkill. My hands were bloody and the blood was on the fence. I screamed at the cars and grabbed the fence with two hands and shook and kicked the fence with my boots until I slipped against the gravel at the edge of the pavement and stumbled and almost fell over.

“Do you want a donut?” she asked me.

There was this donut shop she was pointing to in the strip mall parking lot. I didn’t want to be seen but it was worse just sitting there and so we went in and I let her buy me a donut, feeling like pond scum. I felt the holes in my mouth with my tongue and bit down against my own teeth, grinding until I could feel the cavity that was slowly burrowing down towards my jaw.

I told Aysel that her friend was probably okay. I had no fucking idea where her friend was.